So You Want to Live in ... Lake Bluff

Leafy and historic, this shoreside village an hour north of Chicago cherishes its small-town ambience.

Inside Information: Lake Bluff

Setting: The aptly named Lake Bluff area borders Lake Michigan from a blufftop perch. The 4-square-mile village is home to some 6,000 residents and a small downtown historic district, recently added to the National Register. High temperatures range from a pleasant 82 degrees in July to 28 in January.

Attractions: About an hour’s drive, depending on traffic, or a 55-minute train ride from the heart of Chicago, Lake Bluff is a tranquil world apart from the big city. Wooded ravines cut back from the Lake Michigan shore, creating neighborhoods of shaded streets and well-tended homes. Houses within walking distance of the beach and downtown have fostered community-oriented residents. Seven city parks include a public golf course and Olympic-size swimming pool, as well as sandy Lake Bluff Beach.

Your next-door neighbors: Insurance company presidents, Apple executives, Abbott Laboratory scientists, financial consultants, lawyers, schoolteachers, along with an influx of young families new to town. Median income is high ($114,521), and so are education levels.

How you’d spend your free time: Swimming in Lake Michigan at Lake Bluff Beach, cycling along the bike paths, strolling the tree-shaded streets, attending the Friday farmers’ market and Sunday afternoon concerts on the village green, volunteering to preserve the open lands.

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On the map, Lake Bluff looks like another Chicago suburb in a lakeside string stretching north from the city. In person, it’s a community for the community-minded. On the Fourth of July, service organizations hold neighborhood breakfasts and picnics. Halloween is as decorous as Christmas. Summer Sundays mean concerts on the village green.

“It’s a small-town atmosphere where you care about each other,” says Pat Quade, retired schoolteacher, historical museum docent, and 36-year resident. “We all know each other.”

Lake Bluff’s 1905 brick town hall overlooks the village green and gazebo. Its pocket commercial area was recently recognized as a National Register historic district. Originally founded as a Methodist camp in the 1870s, Lake Bluff was modeled after Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard and Chautauqua in New York as a place for religious contemplation as well as cultural education, social affairs, and recreation. Later, Chicago families found it a convenient waterside retreat from the city heat. An 1897 ad for the 500- guest Hotel Irving―printed the year the hotel burned down―hailed, “Chicago businessmen! If you cannot go away with your families, you can send them to Lake Bluff and be with them every night and Saturdays.”

By the early 1900s, industrialists including the Armour family (of meatpacking fame) began building permanent estates in the area. Abbott Laboratories settled into neighboring North Chicago in 1920, bringing resident scientists and engineers. The 1904 vintage redbrick train station with its castellated tower still serves commuters to Chicago and back.

Lake Bluff is nothing if not house-proud. Sprawling Tudor mansions, earthy Prairie-style dwellings, cozy Colonial Revivals, and towering Queen Annes mingle with modest homes that were the village’s original seasonal cottages. “The east side of town remains very much as it was laid out in the camp meeting days,” says Kathleen O’Hara, co-founder of the Vliet Museum, which is devoted to Lake Bluff history. Rather than large suburban estates separating residents from one another, “you still have family-size lots within walking distance of the beach,” says Brad Andersen, resident and real estate broker.

Those original lots were 25 feet wide, creating a close-knit community where you couldn’t help but know your neighbors. Plots that then went for $250 cost a bit more now, but the sense of community here remains alive, well, and―come summer― gathered on the village green.